About Me

Saturday, 19 December 2015

Who Governs Now?

The British
Constitution as we have understood it in the past has changed in crucial ways
and there are few, notably in the media, who understand what the present
situation is.

Firstly, we no
longer have "Cabinet Government" where the Prime Minister and senior
ministers form a small group at the head of affairs politically. What we have is a Prime Minister with a team
of highly paid appointed advisers and media operators. These relate to the big beasts in finance and
the corporations firstly and others secondly.

Other senior
ministers, notably at present, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, might
have parallel teams which may overlap and interchange with that of the Prime
Minister but they are ancillary and in
effect subordinate.

Secondly, the
House of Commons no longer represents either the people as a whole or the major
supporting groups of voters of the political parties. It is now largely composed of members of a
professional political class who know little and understand less and seek to
apply a body of theory that is divorced from real needs.

In terms of
the structure of membership of the House of Commons, the first past the post
system has never delivered balanced entries but the situation is now much worse. The electoral system required updating
regularly. This has not been done and the
membership of the House is increasingly at odds with the electorate.

The House of
Lords represents nobody except the inner circles of major parties, the quangos,
and the major corporations with a few legacy hereditary peers. Because the appointments made in the past reflected
previous situations it has become a vehicle for the opposition parties to
prevent the government from governing.

Thirdly, in
its most senior ranks the Civil Service is neither civil nor a service. It is almost a form of business operation
with many and various subsidiaries. They
are given policy guidance largely from financial and lobbying bodies that are
now part of the system, who are also meshed in with top party ranks, but
finally answering to the Prime Minister's team and other teams.

This is how
the real work is done. The political reports
you have in the media and the press are largely of incidental, minor, personal
interest and quasi entertainment elements that arise and are given publicity. What happens in the Commons and Lords is
either theatre or going through the motions.

This is the
way "Botcher" Cameron and "Ozymandias" Osborne run the show. It is not the same as Blair and Brown before
them but an extension and expansion of their way of working. During the period of the Coalition, 2010 to
2015, the Lib Dems ensured that there was more than enough blundering and stupidity
to disguise the reality.

But none of
the three parts above of the government system are in charge. They might pretend or claim to be but they
are not. Because there is not only
Europe, but all the other bodies in the world and obligations made, some using
Europe as a post office, that not just limit but determine what our government
can or cannot do.

For Ozymandias
see the Shelley poem of near 200 years ago.
The good news is that this cannot last and any major crisis will finish
it off.